Job Replies: You Are Miserable Comforters

¹Then Job answered:

²“I have heard many such things;

miserable comforters are you all!

³Will windy words have an end?[#Job 6:26; 15:2]

Or what provokes you that you answer?

⁴I also could speak as you do,

if your soul were in my place.

I could heap up words against you

and shake my head at you;

⁵but I would strengthen you with my mouth,

and the moving of my lips would relieve your grief.

⁶“Though I speak, my grief is not relieved;

and though I stop, how am I eased?

⁷But now He has made me weary;

You have made desolate all my company.

⁸You have filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me;[#Job 10:17]

and my leanness has risen up and bears witness to my face.

⁹He has torn me in His wrath, and He has carried a grudge against me.

He has gnashed me with His teeth;

my enemy sharpens His gaze upon me.

¹⁰They have gaped upon me with their mouth;[#Ps 22:13]

they have struck me upon the cheek with reproach;

they have gathered themselves together against me.

¹¹God has delivered me to the ungodly

and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.

¹²I was at ease, but He has shattered me.

He also has taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces,

and set me up for His target.

¹³His archers surround me;[#Job 6:4]

He splits open my kidneys and does not pity;

He pours out my gall upon the ground.

¹⁴He pierces me with thrust after thrust;

He rushes upon me like a warrior.

¹⁵“I have sewn sackcloth over my skin

and thrust my horn into the dust.

¹⁶My face is inflamed with weeping,

and on my eyelids is the shadow of death,

¹⁷though not for any violence in my hands,

and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸“O earth, do not cover my blood,[#Isa 26:21]

and let my cry have no resting place.

¹⁹Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven,[#Ro 1:9]

and my record is on high.

²⁰My friends scorn me;

my eyes pour out tears unto God.

²¹Oh, that one might plead for a man with God,[#Job 31:35]

as a man pleads for his neighbor!

²²“For when a few years have passed,

I will go the way from which I will not return.